


The Problem With Sneezing

by unwritten_muse



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-13
Updated: 2012-10-13
Packaged: 2017-11-16 06:02:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwritten_muse/pseuds/unwritten_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exhaustion couldn't explain how the caverns of Diadem Prime were suddenly outside her quarters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Problem With Sneezing

**Author's Note:**

> I've taken quite a few liberties with where holoemitters were actually installed on _Voyager_ (meaning I've put them pretty much everywhere). Also, there's not a lot of science in this science fiction.

Kathryn Janeway knew she was still very tired; it seemed the latest spatial anomaly had caused yet another sleepless night. But exhaustion couldn't explain how the caverns of Diadem Prime were suddenly outside her quarters.

"Janeway to Bridge. Report."

"There's nothing to report, Captain," Chakotay's hesitant voice replied. "We're experiencing some minor power fluctuations but it's not causing any functional issues."

"Then how do you explain," Janeway began, interrupting herself as the images blinked out of existence and she was standing in a standard ship's corridor again. She waited a moment, half expecting the environment to change once again, but Chakotay's curious "Captain?" shook her from her reverie.

"I'm on my way, Commander. Have Ensign Kim run a diagnostic on our holoemitters."

 

She got to the bridge without any further incidents, where Chakotay met her at the door.

"We're getting reports now from across the ship, Captain. Random holographic projections on every deck and common area where the holoemitters have been installed. But we can't find any technical malfunctions."

"We should disable the ones here and in other critical locations until we figure out what's going on."

"Already done. And B'Elanna's started a complete system scan to try to identify and isolate the problem."

"Good. The last thing we need is a holonovel playing itself out across the ship when we meet with the Oncari tomorrow."

Over the next hour, Voyager played host to a variety of charted locations including the Pollux dilithium mines in the mess hall, the ruins of Taran Pi in stellar cartography, and the New Iapetus Colony in one of the shuttle bays. The captain was just about to head down to engineering herself when Torres signaled her asking if she could come to sickbay as soon as possible.

"The Doctor, of course. Is the problem also affecting his program?"

"No, not so much affected by, but rather the cause of."

"The cause?"

"It appears our Doctor has a cold and the infection is spreading."

 

When the Captain stepped through the sickbay doors, the first thing she heard was a loud, wall-shaking sneeze. She walked into the Doctor's office to find B'Elanna and their EMH huddled in front of the computer terminal.

"Gesundheit," Janeway said to Torres.

"That wasn't me, Captain. It was the Doctor."

"The Doctor? How can he be sneezing?"

"Like I said, he seems to have a cold."

"But sneezing?"

"Believe me, Captain," the Doctor wheezed through a fully stuffed nose, "if I could stop it, I would."

"Maybe it's part of his programming," B'Elanna suggested, "a mechanism to alert the crew there's something wrong in his code."

"Okay, so the Doctor's ... sick, for lack of a better word. How is it affecting the holoemitters throughout the ship?"

"Apparently, whatever he thinks about for an extended period of time gets translated through the projectors."

"It's translating his thoughts?" She turned to the Doctor, her brow furrowed in bafflement. "Doctor, why are you thinking about Diadem Prime? Or the dilithium mines on Pollux, for that matter?"

"It's been suggested to me that I try and expand my horizons, as it were, pursue outside interests as a way of improving my interactions with the crew."

Janeway shook her head slightly, a small smile gracing her face. "I guess we should be pleased your thoughts haven't veered into more ... adult areas."

The Doctor looked seriously offended. "Captain -"

Janeway cut him off with a raise of her hand. "So, the Doctor's thoughts are being translated through the holoemitters. That still doesn't explain why it's turning my ship into a holodeck."

"The best I can figure out is that the projectors are interacting with the bio-neural circuitry and somehow turning the ship's shell into one large hologrid."

"What?"

"I don't know how it's possible, but that's what seems to be happening. Right now it's not causing any major problems, but over time the energy drain will be cataclysmic."

"Doctor, until Lieutenant Torres can wipe out this virus, I think it's advisable that you shut down your program."

"We already tried that, Captain," the Doctor sniffed.

"I can't access the virus when he's not actually activated."

"But you can fix his programming?"

"Yes, I've isolated the code, now it's just a matter of purging the system."

"Fine. Let me know when you're finished." Janeway started to leave, then turned back. "And Doctor, for the time being, please try to keep your mind blank."

The only response was another explosive sneeze.


End file.
